Sutton’s Sins: The Sinful Suttons Book 2

by Scott, Scarlett

  She did as he asked, and he tied her tapes, then worked his magic on her hair, sifting his fingers through the tangled locks. Surely he did not intend to dress her unruly red curls as well, did he?

  Before she could ask or even protest, he was winding it into a coil. Hair pins gently raked her scalp as he slid them into place.

  “There we are.” His breath was hot on her nape as his hands settled on her shoulders.

  She shivered, wondering if he would set his lips there, fearing she could not control herself if he did. But then, Rafe spun her about so that she faced him once more.

  His expression was as tender as his touch had been. “I ain’t going to be hired as a lady’s maid any time soon, but you’ll do.”

  Her fingers flew to her hair, tentatively inspecting his work. It seemed he was indeed adept at dressing a lady’s hair as well. Once again, the thought of the ladies on whom he had previously practiced made a possessive bolt of envy dash through her.

  “Thank you,” she said shakily. “Have you seen my cap?”

  “It’s a sin to cover your hair with that abomination.”

  “Where is it?” she asked, undeterred.

  “I tossed it into the fire last night.” His grin was unrepentant.

  And slightly triumphant.

  “Rafe! You cannot burn my caps. I only have three.”

  “Two.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “We’d best ‘urry, lovely. Time ain’t exactly our bosom friend this morning.”

  “Yes,” she agreed, knowing they had to part and yet somehow dreading it as well.

  Because this was all they were to have.

  “Come,” he said offering her his hand.

  “You are dressed in shirtsleeves and trousers and stockinged feet,” she pointed out. “Surely Mr. Sutton will take note.”

  “No time for me.” He took her hand in his and brought it to his lips for a kiss. “I’ll ’andle Jasper. Come now. We’ve a room to secret you back to.”

  CHAPTER 10

  “You look like you spent the night rolling about the floor of The Garden of Flora, with half a dozen wenches,” Jasper observed when Rafe folded his frame into the carriage bench opposite his. “Were you carousing until dawn?”

  Rafe tamped down a rise of inconvenient self-loathing and gave his brother his best devil-may-give-a-scrope smile. “And what do you care what I was about? You’re an old married man these days, firmly caught in the leg-shackle.”

  “Happily so,” his brother agreed, his countenance stern. “Mayhap I want the same for my rakehell brother.”

  “I ain’t a rakehell.” He adjusted the fit of his hat on his head, frowning as he thought of what he had done.

  He’d taken what Persephone offered.

  Given her pleasure.

  She was still a bleeding virgin.

  Yes, but she was an innocent, you fucking clod pate. You could have exercised some restraint. At the very least, you should have seen her back to her room last night instead of embarking on a furtive dash through the halls this morning.

  Aye, it was true. They had narrowly avoided detection. It was not an exercise in stupidity he wished to repeat.

  “And next you’ll tell me the sky ain’t blue and the Bradleys didn’t steal our latest shipment of jackey and set rats loose in The Sinner’s Palace.”

  Christ. So that was why Jasper had summoned him. The Bradleys were waging war once more.

  “Bloody bastards.” Rafe’s hands clenched into fists he longed to slam into the teeth of one of the Bradley lads. Or their arsehole of a sire, for that matter. “Those shit sacks are determined to ruin us one way or another. If the last basting we gave them ain’t enough to get through their thick sconces, we’ll just ’ave to give them another.”

  “First we have to make certain the rat catchers gather all the vermin,” Jasper said grimly.

  What a coil. And Rafe could not help but to feel responsible for it. Leaving Hart and Wolf to fend for the gaming hell and look after Lily and Pen had likely been a bad halfpenny. Wolf and Hart were capable, but Pen was a bloody handful, and Lily was still young and wild. To say nothing of the daily running of the hell.

  “I ought to be staying there.” Rafe shook his head. “If I’d been at The Sinner’s Palace, no rats or Bradleys would’ve found their way past me.”

  “The same could be said for me,” his brother acknowledged. “It ain’t about whose fault this is, Rafe. It’s about what we do next to clean up the mess and make damn sure it never ’appens again.”

  “Ever the wise brother,” he grumbled, and not without a hint of bitterness.

  As the eldest of the Suttons, Jasper was their leader. There had been a time when he, too, had been full of hellfire, drinking and wenching far too much. But that had very much changed in recent years, and when his twin daughters from a past tryst had come into his life, he had grown more responsible and staid, committed to Lady Octavia and Anne and Elizabeth and their welfare in the same way he had once minded the hell.

  Rafe, meanwhile, had not only shirked his duties at The Sinner’s Palace, but he had made a muck of his own affairs as well. He had all but shagged his nieces’ governess the night before.

  And he had fallen in love with her.

  What to do with this information?

  Last night, he thought he had been drunk on quim, the notion occurring to him because all the blood in his body had diverted to his cock. But the feelings were still there, a strangeness in the pit of his belly, a pulling in his heart, as if there were an invisible string tying him to her.

  Which was ridiculous, of course. Rafe Sutton did not lose his heart to a set of petticoats. And he had known more than his fair share. He kissed them and pleased them, worshiped their bodies and charmed them and laughed with them until they parted ways. He had never, in all his days, wanted one woman to be the first sight he beheld each morning when he rose and the last he saw every night before slumber claimed him.

  Until her.

  “Anything rattling about in that knowledge box of yours?”

  Jasper’s voice sliced through his musings, reminding him that he was in a carriage with his brother, on his way to the East End.

  To where he bloody well belonged. He had been born in the rookeries. In a large sense, it was all he knew. A man could earn coin, acquire an education, purchase the togs of a fancy cove, hang his arse over a chamber pot in Mayfair, but he would never be a lord. He would never truly rise above his station. And he would do well to remember that.

  Rafe shook the knowledge box in question. “Only a few puffs of dust and some wood shavings.”

  Jasper snorted. “Giving yourself a fat lot of credit, aren’t you? More like nothing but dust. Christ knows that any man with a brain between his ears wouldn’t whip the son of an earl in a bawdy house and expect the act to go unnoticed.”

  Well, hell. He stiffened, searching his brother’s stare, so like his own. Wondering just how much Jasper knew.

  “Who would do something so bleeding stupid?” he blustered, hoping they might at least leave Persephone out of it.

  But he was not to be so fortunate.

  “You,” his brother said coolly. “That’s who. Miss Wren spun some pretty lies on your behalf, but I’m not stupid, Rafe. There’s something between the two of you, and I want to know what it is and why you whipped Lord Gregson at The Garden of Flora on her behalf.”

  The fury, burning deep inside him from the moment Persephone had unburdened herself to him in this very conveyance, rose. It would not be contained. The story was not his to tell, but he could not sit here in silence and allow his brother to suppose the viscount an innocent man.

  “Because he tried to rape her,” Rafe spat. “It ’appened at her last post, and she left without a letter of character just to escape the bleeding dunghill. You must know I’d never attack a lord without cause.”

  Indeed, lords were who filled their purses. The Sutton family business was keeping the quality happy, not inflicting
pain and humiliation upon them. The whipping had been a necessity with Gregson, however. The man deserved punishment. He deserved more than what he had got.

  “Hell,” Jasper swore fiercely, his countenance going dark with the same rage coursing through Rafe’s veins. Suttons protected their women. “Little wonder she forged the letter from the earl. I had wondered at the reason.”

  “Yes.” Rafe exhaled in a rush, unclenching his fists and then digging his fingers into his thighs with painful pressure. “She didn’t deserve what happened to her.”

  His brother’s ire was still tangible, his face hard as granite. “Gregson will be turned away from The Sinner’s Palace and all other establishments where we assert any hint of influence. I’ll also be sharing this news with Lady Octavia. The right article in her scandal journal when the first edition is released, and he’ll be ruined just as he deserves.”

  Jasper’s wife, Lady Octavia, had recently begun Tales About Town, a new venture that thrived on the foibles of the ton. Rafe would dearly love to see an article printed in its pages revealing Gregson for who and what he was.

  He nodded jerkily, emotion making his throat feel thick, the words more difficult to find. “I’ve no doubt Persephone would like that.”

  He realized his mistake the moment Jasper’s brows rose.

  “Persephone, is it?” He shook his head. “Damn it, Rafe, just how familiar are you with the twins’ governess?”

  Oh, the answers he could give.

  Last night, his tongue had been in her sweet cunny and lashing her pearl while she rode his face until she came. Eh, he had a feeling Jasper wouldn’t appreciate that response too much. Best to try a different one.

  “Familiar enough to know she’s a fine woman,” he said, not wishing to harm her position in Jasper’s household. She’d been deuced fretful this morning, worrying over what would happen. He hated having caused her a moment of worry with his own recklessness.

  “That ain’t an answer, brother,” Jasper said, eyes narrowing.

  Rafe grinned unrepentantly. “It’s the only one you’re going to get.”

  He would guard Persephone’s honor to his dying breath. Perhaps it was all he could give her, aside from last night’s pleasure, but he owed her that much. He owed her more, but he wasn’t certain what he could give her.

  She was a governess.

  He was an East End scoundrel.

  The carriage rocked to a halt outside The Sinner’s Palace. This was where he belonged. His duty was to his family, he reminded himself firmly. Not to a woman who could never be his, regardless of how he felt for her. A man could love a woman and let her go because he knew he wasn’t bloody well going to be the man for her.

  Couldn’t he?

  “Hell, Rafe. What have you been doing beneath my roof?” Jasper demanded.

  A scream issued from within the gaming hell.

  “Damned rats,” his brother grumbled.

  Rafe and Jasper scrambled from the carriage, the question left unanswered, as they hastened inside.

  * * *

  Three nights.

  Persephone paced the carpets of her small room, trying to turn her mind to other matters and failing. It always, inevitably, returned to him.

  To Rafe.

  She had not seen him since the morning he had left in day-old rumpled shirtsleeves and trousers, since he had kissed her on the nose and looked at her so tenderly she must surely have imagined it all. To say nothing of the feverish passion they had shared.

  Yes, she would have believed none of it had happened at all were it not for the rush of sensation that filled her—entirely new and potent and unlike anything she had ever felt before—whenever she thought about what had passed between them that night. And were it not for the memory of his frantic kisses, his knowing touch, and his big strong body at her mercy.

  But it had been three nights, and still, to the best of her knowledge, he had yet to return to the house. It was possible he may never. And she was powerless to know the truth of the matter. Who could she ask? Certainly not Mr. Sutton, who already suspected something more had happened between herself and Rafe than she dared reveal. Nor Lady Octavia, and most definitely not anyone belowstairs. To do so would only cause minds to wonder and tongues to wag, and she could not afford any of those circumstances.

  You are down to weeks, Persephone. A scant few weeks until you are free of Cousin Bartholomew’s reign.

  “Oh, heavens!” Heaving a sigh, she stalked back to the opposite end of her chamber.

  The evening air held a damp chill, for it had rained all day, and not even the fire burning in her grate was sufficient to warm her. She supposed she ought to be thankful for the fireplace, at least. In her previous situation, her room had been impossibly sweltering on a warm day and numbingly cold on a chilly day. She’d never been able to amass enough bedclothes to keep herself warm. It had been one of many times when she had been forced to acknowledge the disparity between her life—one she had considered an imprisonment, of sorts—and the lives of those in service. While Cousin Bartholomew had kept her soundly beneath his thumb, she had never been physically uncomfortable.

  Aside from his announcement of their betrothal and the kisses he had forced upon her. She had been eighteen then, and terribly young and untutored in all the evils which could be visited upon a girl of vast fortune with no one to protect her.

  But she had been intelligent enough to understand that becoming Cousin Bartholomew’s wife was not the future she wanted for herself. She had formulated her plan, and then, when the opportunity had struck, she had run.

  She was still running. All these years later.

  If he caught her now…

  She shivered, refusing to allow her mind to travel to such a possibility. Cousin Bartholomew did not appreciate a challenge to his brutal authority. Nor did he approve of a woman with her own mind and will, one who did not wish to become his pawn.

  “Lovely?”

  On a gasp, she spun about, hand to her heart. And there he was. Not the specter of her terrified imaginings. No indeed, Cousin Bartholomew had not found her here. She could only continue to hope and pray he would not.

  The man standing before her was Rafe Sutton.

  Her Rafe.

  Dare she think of him in such terms? She had no right. He did not know who she truly was. Her life was a massive knot of lies.

  “Rafe,” she said, half of her believing he was an apparition, the product of her feverish longing for him.

  It had been three nights.

  The longest nights of her life.

  How had he managed to slip inside her room, unheard, unnoticed?

  “Tell me you are not a ghost,” she added, although she felt foolish the moment the words emerged.

  He was near to the door, dressed in evening finery, and he could not have looked more polished and handsome if he were waltzing beneath the blazing candles of a society ball. Or, at least, she imagined he would not. Persephone had never been able to attend a true society event. Cousin Bartholomew had made certain to keep her secluded. The air was wholesome in Oxfordshire, he had claimed, not at all thick with soot and fog as it was in London.

  It had been yet another self-serving lie her guardian had told her.

  Forcefully, Persephone thrust thoughts of Cousin Bartholomew from her mind. Rafe was here, and he was all she wanted to think, to know, to feel. Even if he stood somewhat hesitantly, several strides between them, he was here.

  With her.

  That had to account for something.

  Surely?

  “I ain’t a ghost, sweet,” Rafe said, sauntering toward her in that way he had, such pure, masculine confidence on display. “I’m damned real. Pinch me if you like.”

  His offer was silliness. But she did not care. Seizing upon an excuse to cut the distance between them and touch him, she moved forward. When he was within reach, she extended her right arm, her hand finding his biceps. Through the layers of his coat and shirt, his heat w
armed her.

  Brought her back to life.

  She caught his skin and those outer layers between thumb and forefinger and did as he had suggested. Pinched. A small punishment for his absence.

  “Ah!” He started, moving away from her and rubbing the place where she had touched him. “That bleeding hurt. I didn’t truly intend for you to pinch me.”

  “Then you should not have encouraged me to do so,” she countered, feeling ridiculously irritated with him now that he had finally appeared. “And nor should you have left me here for three nights, wondering where you have gone or why.”

  The last bit, she had meant to keep to herself. But of course, she had blurted the words without thought. Curse her foolish tongue.

  He raised a brow, considering her, lips half-quirked upward in a charming rascal’s smile, the slightest hint of a dimple appearing in his left cheek. “You missed me then, did you?”

  Had he thought she would not?

  An unsettling thought occurred to her then. Did he ply every woman he met with such masterful pleasure? Did he make all the ladies in his acquaintance weep with the chance to have his mouth upon them once more? She wondered how many ladies were longing for him, somewhere in London, even now.

  “Of course I did not,” she told him, lying.

  What was one more fib? Almost everything about her was a lie. Her name. Her past. Heavens, she had been someone else for so long she had forgotten what it felt like to be herself.

  His countenance turned serious. “If you didn’t miss me, mayhap I should go.”

  “No.” She caught his sleeve when he would have turned away, staying his flight. “Do not go. Where have you been?”

  His gaze traveled over her face, and she swore she saw hunger burning in the mysterious depths of his eyes. “Taking care of a few matters.”

  Belatedly, she noticed a shadow of bruising on his jaw. She reached for it, gently pressing the tips of her fingers to the mottled skin. “What happened to you?”

  His grin returned. “Is that worry I hear? For me?”

  Of course it was.

  But she was still uncertain where she stood with him, so she withdrew her touch. “Is it not normal to be concerned for the welfare of others? One would suppose it a necessary human trait.”